


Cast Away

by PenelopeAbigail



Series: Whumptober 2020 [20]
Category: Spider-Man (Video Game 2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Day 20, Gen, Lost - Freeform, Toto I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Whump, Whumptober 2020, field medicine, hurt!Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27119654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeAbigail/pseuds/PenelopeAbigail
Summary: After his loss to the Sinister Six, Spider-Man wasn't found floating on a barrel nearby. Actually, he wasn't found at all...
Series: Whumptober 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955698
Kudos: 15
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Cast Away

**Author's Note:**

> Day 20!  
> Headcanons are expressed in this one, and I really liked writing it.
> 
> UPDATE: 10/21/2020:  
> I replayed the game and had to rewatch that chilling scene of Peter being beaten, and I realized I had the wrong wrist for poor Pete. I've updated it here to reflect canon-accurate injuries.

Peter had always loved sailing.

Growing up in Queens meant that he was only a half-hour away from the ocean, and Uncle Ben rented a boat and pier every summer to take him out to just sail. No destination, no return date, only as much as they dared to pack (food notwithstanding) (fishing lines included), and they’d push off.

Nothing but the waves and each other.

The wind in his hair, the smell of the ocean, the sounds of the waves—nothing could beat them.

Of course, there were the few summers where Ben and May simply couldn’t afford it, but those only made the summers when they could even more special.

Peter missed those days and hadn’t gone sailing since Ben passed.

Well, until now.

Without even opening his eyes he knew he was out on the ocean again. The salt-water was unique in its fragrance, and it brought nothing but good memories; the utter and complete silence was familiar, broken only by the rushing of the waves and the occasional squawk of distant seagulls— _or were they ocean-gulls, now?_ The slight breeze carried the smallest water droplets onto his face. There was no mistaking it.

He was smiling when he opened his eyes, gazing up into the vast, dark sky, black and gloomy. The humidity was palpable, and Peter knew without a doubt that they’d be— _he’d_ be facing storms sooner or later.

He couldn’t remember how much he had packed, so maybe now was a good time to turn back and go home.

As soon as he made to sit up, his whole body groaned. The abundance of pain only jolted his memories back into place, and dread of his last fight overtook his mind.

The prison break, the Raft, Doctor Octavius.

They were going to wreak havoc on the city, and he needed to get back immediately to stop them!

Again, he tried to sit up, and again, his body screamed at him to stop.

He also remembered that horrible beating he took.

 _God,_ he could still feel the broken bones. How many were— _Oh, no. How long had he been out? How much time had his healing been mending the bones wrong?_

Not good! If his foot was as broken as it felt and yet healed wrong, he’d have to rebreak it.

Along with that, he could smell the blood coating him and his suit, could feel the coolness as it dried.

Was it just one wound or multiple? They must already have healed closed because he couldn’t feel any terrible surface wounds—not even the backstabbing Scorpion gave him. He could barely remember much detail from that fight, only that he had been severely thrashed. He didn’t even remember them leaving—which was how he must have ended up on this—this… What was he floating on?

It wasn’t a sailboat or a raft, and it felt wooden— _was this_ Titanic _reenacted? Was he floating on a wooden door?_

He really didn’t want to try to sit up and look. That hadn’t gone well the last— _A light! Behind some clouds!_

That must be the moon, no other explanation. Yeah, the sky was overcast, but if the clouds were thin enough to let the outline of the moon through, it probably wouldn’t actually start raining for another several hours, probably when it dawned morning.

Speaking of, what time was it?

If the moon was still that low in the sky, it might be just about morning—or it might be late at night—no, wait, that's how the sun worked, not the moon. It was hard to tell. He’d need to sit up to find where the land was—or just look around— _why work hard when you can work smart?_

He turned his head slowly to the left and saw water, then slowly to the right, and still saw water. His neck _did_ ache, but not near as bad as the rest of his body so he powered through it and tilted his head back to look behind him—water.

His only hope was in front of him, and he lifted his head up with clenched teeth and a pinched brow— _but he was wearing the Spider-Mask so it wasn’t like anyone could see it or was even around to see it—_ and saw still more water. Nothing but water.

Nothing at all.

Only him and the ocean.

His heart was pounding in his chest; he could feel it trying to escape through his ribcage, aching and burning as the broken bones shifted. He could hear it, loud and echoing inside him.

 _Only him and the ocean_.

His breathing stuttered in his chest, increasing the ache on his ribs.

 _Only the ocean surrounded him_.

No, no. That couldn’t be right, it just couldn’t.

Manhattan lied between landmasses. Sure, there was water all around, but there was land all around, too.

He couldn’t possibly have floated around all the obstacles and out into the ocean. He had to have overlooked something. There had to be something there!

Light always pierced through the darkness!

He forced himself to sit up this time, but instead of using his abdominal muscles, he pushed up with his arms— _stabbing pain from his right wrist—_ he cried out in alarm, having not known that his wrist was broken, and collapsed back down, his back crying out in protest—okay, yeah, he could still feel Scorpion's love tap.

Eyes squeezed shut, he tried again, needing above anything else to see how far away land was because _surely_ this wasn’t real. He should have banged into a pier or washed up on a beach before he got way out into the ocean.

Screaming helped push through the pain, and he realized that his left arm was very broken as well, but his enhanced healing had already mended it whole (incorrectly) so it could still (painfully, very painfully) hold him up as he searched around, twisting his neck and torso and screaming again with the new pain.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

There were only water and the large chunk of random wood he drifted on.

The ocean was calm, wind only slight breezes, and waves with small crests.

It was absolutely silent.

His heart beat even louder, and his breathing was increasingly labored.

This couldn’t be happening.

This wasn’t real.

How could he be drifting out in the ocean like this and _see nothing at all_? No land in sight.

How long had he been drifting?

Where even was he?

His head again twisted every which way, but there were no landmarks; he had no frame of reference and no idea which way was east and which was west…

He could have been out for _days._

He could be floating out in the Atlantic _hundreds_ of miles from any shore.

_Breathe in… Breathe out…_

The minimum possible amount of time he could have been unconscious was, like, four hours at this distance, but with how much his healing had already accomplished, he'd give it twenty hours. Rafts carried only by the ocean current move about 2-4 miles per hour, so he could likely be sixty miles away from land.

If, however, it was the entire next day, twenty-four hours later, or more, and he was out in the deep ocean where the waves traveled much faster, he could be _two-hundred miles_ away and that wasn’t even the worst-case scenario.

His head felt fuzzy and his eyes weren’t tracking right. His breathing was getting out of control, and he distantly realized that he was having a panic attack—but then his little raft hit a wave that splashed salt water all over him, startling him and knocking the panic attack off before it could take hold.

Okay, _okay_.

He needed to calm down, to breathe—breathe _better_.

He was Spider-Man, he was going to be okay.

This was bad, this was very bad— _breathe in… breathe out…_

Breathing was difficult, though, when you’ve got busted ribs and multiple broken bones— _and good God, something inside him hurt like the Dickens! Was that his spleen? His appendix?_

He slowly laid back down, allowing his muscles the break they craved. He remembered his abs taking quite the beating—his whole body had been smashed like a soda can by Rhino—but from how much damage they likely sustained, they were feeling _much_ better.

That was a plus: his healing would keep him alive. He wasn’t going to die out here.

Not that it would come to that. Someone would find him.

Surely someone had noticed his absence by now, May, MJ, _Yuri_ —she was the last (sane) person to have seen him alive. She knew he had been on the Raft fighting those guys. She at least knew where to start looking!

There was a dull but radiating pain on his right side, so he reached with this left arm to check it out— _metal, bent and broken, stabbing him_.

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. About two inches wide, half an inch thick, a small thing. But how long was it? He couldn’t find that out without removing it or causing himself quite a bit of pain.

How had he not noticed it?

He must’ve been in too much of a panic with the whole situation, and also, everything hurt, not just his side. He _did_ fight through quite a bit of pain to sit up…

He really, _really_ wanted to remove it, really did not want that in him, but he knew if he removed it, he’d likely bleed out, and with the state of him, it was more plausible than not. He would need a patch, a tourniquet, a— _how would a tourniquet help with a wound on the side? Get your head together, Pete!_

He needed something to put on the wound to stop the bleeding, but it absolutely could not stay in.

His webbing!

He could pile it up all around the wound to keep it closed and isolated! It would be much better than using his dirty clothes— _which was just his suit. He’d have to tear it up, and if there was a way to avoid that, he’d like to take it._

The problem with his webbing was that it dissolved after some hours, so he’d have to reapply it often— _well, hopefully, he won’t be out here that long—_ which could be good. Infections were common, and though he has always healed too fast for infections, this case might be his first if he wasn’t careful.

This wasn’t his first time patching himself up, either, and it never gets easier. This wasn’t the type of thing you get used to.

It required a steady mind to combat the pain and stay sober while fighting through the pain in the muscles to patch the wound. It was a terrible feat, and he hated doing it _so much._

He very much missed MJ right then. He always went to her to patch him up. He knew that she knew that he had nowhere else to go and wouldn’t turn him away. The hardest thing had been when they’d broken up, and he had needed stitches in his back, and he had been right outside her block. He went to the hospital where a very grateful nurse helped him on her break. He didn’t even get her name.

This time, though, there was no one to turn to, nowhere to go. It was all on him.

The web-shooter on his right wrist was broken beyond repair— _and he was pretty sure it was stabbing him, too, crumpled inwards from where Doc broke it_ —so he’d have to use his left, which was just fine since the wound was on his right side anyway.

 _Oh, man, this was going to hurt so much_.

He wasn’t ready, needed a moment to breathe and collect himself.

_Don’t cry, Pete._

_You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think._

Staring up into the vast sea of blue-ish-black, he smiled to himself, remembering when he was a child and his mom would read him Winnie the Pooh, and then when she died, Aunt May would reread them to him for comfort.

_You can do this, Pete!_

Without hesitation, he reached over himself, gripped the metal tight, and slowly started withdrawing it, not bothering to hold back his screams— _ain’t no one around to hear him, and if there was, then good! Maybe they’d come and rescue him!_

The pain was daunting, threatening to rip him apart at the seams, and he clenched his teeth around an intake of thick, salty air. He rested for just a moment, needing to come back to himself. When he dared open his eyes, he glanced down to see that he’d only drawn it out three inches.

How much more was there? Surely, it wasn’t piercing him all the way through! There’d be way more pain than this.

He couldn’t stop for long, blood was already beginning to leak and pool, and again without hesitation, he pulled more and didn’t stop until it was completely out.

It was out, and there was more pain, but different pain, not stabbing and killing and shredding pain, but a dull fire instead.

Breathing was difficult, and he felt like he wasn’t drawing in enough air, but perhaps he just needed to catch his breath. He was tired.

He was so tired, and he wanted to sleep, and his muscles didn’t want to move, but he knew that he needed to patch that hole up or he wouldn’t wake up.

He just had to get his muscles to _move_.

With every second that he laid there, more blood that he couldn’t afford to lose was draining away.

Without lifting his head, he reached over and sprayed fluid all over his side, perhaps too much, but the more the better.

But the task was complete, the stabbing was gone and it currently laid by his side.

Before he decided to sleep, he turned his head to look at it.

An ugly thing it was, about five inches long, and slimming down to a point, twisted metal dulled with shiny blood.

He shook his head. It was basically an overly-large nail. Where had it even come from?

He didn’t really care, was too tired to care, too tired to keep his eyes open any longer, so he closed them and drifted away.


End file.
